I'll Step In Once Again
by shinyfairylights
Summary: Just a kind of introspective Reeve fic. It's my first time writing him, and I see him as a little bit crazy, and a little bit honorable. Also shows my perception on his Inspire ability.


Reeve Tuesti was of the opinion everyone was a little bit mad inside. Some were better at hiding it than others, cloaking it with fake smiles and lies. Others wore it proudly on their sleeve, like a medal of honor given for heroics.

He was a master of disguise-his professional life a far cry from his fortune telling ways.

_Or was that Cait Sith's fortune telling ways?_

His mind was home to thousands of voices, the loudest in a high pitched brogue that was hard to ignore.

It was any wonder he could function in his daily life.

When he was young, and his toys would actually _come to life_ and speak to him, Reeve wondered if he was broken. If something inside him was unable to be repaired, if the fear he caught in his mother's eyes was unfounded.

Would he hurt someone? It was popular opinion that 'crazy' people were liable to do so-that it was so common it was expected. He knew the image that he should portray-rocking back and forth, talking to himself, drool out of the corner of his mouth.

Instead, he pushed himself in the other direction, polishing himself to a shine that blinded everyone to what went on inside. When his voice cracked, everyone chalked it up to the pressure of his job. When he would stare in the distance, his eyes a little wild, they noted he wasn't getting enough sleep.

Reeve lived his life on a pillar of lies-keeping his balance with avoidance and carefully crafted phrases.

When he (_Cait Sith not him he isn't a cat riding a moogle_) first joined up with AVALANCHE, with the intent on spying, he spent much of his time absorbed in his work with Urban Development. So he let Cait take over the doll completely, with his megaphone and his pestering. He would check in every now and then, at night when it was silent and dark and the loneliness ate away at his skin like acid.

Those times became more frequently as he got caught up in their story, many of them converging together toward one goal. It didn't matter that Yuffie's main worry was gathering Materia, that Cid was along for the ride because ShinRa pissed him off, or that Cloud was so batshit crazy Reeve was surprised the man could form coherent sentences. Even if nobody else saw it right away-when Cait's eyes met Cloud's mad recognized mad, as if it were something instinctual.

Those times that he was looking through Cait's eyes, he could feel the camaraderie envelop him in the warmth, like a mother's hug. The threads connected them all, he could see it-intertwining and knotting together so that they would always be a part of each other's lives.

Reeve was watching as they traveled, when the others settled into a routine of teasing and laughing, and included Cait, and by extension himself. It was_ his_ decision, not Cait's, to go back into the Temple. His mind was still connected (_he never mastered breaking that connection, not when he poured a part of himself into something_), and he writhed in his bed for days afterward, calling in sick, nightmares of walls closing in and crushing him haunting his sleep.

He remember Aerith's eyes, bright green with unshed tears, as she agreed to have her fortune read one last time.

Reeve didn't like to think he was crazy-he was unique in his power. This didn't make him the slightest insane, these voices in his head. He knew for a fact he wasn't the only one who heard things that others couldn't.

Then it all came back to his opinion-everyone is a little mad inside.

Sometimes, he would wish for silence. It was long forgotten in his world-the personalities inside begged for released, so loud that he frequently complained of headaches. When their characteristics began to show in his own actions, Reeve didn't notice-when he would crack a joke about Reno having a fat ass (and laughing hysterically when the man would look behind him frantically), when he would snort at the fortune cookies and their mundane fortunes.

For a while, Reeve lost himself in the chaos of his mind, of the world around him. He sank, into the brightly colored lights that only existed in his mind, and wondered when he would be able to come up for air again.

The days, the _months_, afterward were a complete blur-time passed so quickly Reeve found himself sitting in a chair, in a boardroom that didn't belong to ShinRa anymore, and finally realizing that it was over. Everything was over.

Like a fairytale his mother would read to him when he was very young, and didn't make the inanimate talk back. A group of warriors travel to save their world, but the stories never tell of the _after_. They leave it on a happy note, but there are no tales of rebuilding, of the sadness and constant ache left behind every time someone looked at Midgar.

At this point, Reeve began to reconstruct himself, from the inside out. He'd gotten so involved with AVALANCHE, their threading and twists and love affair with each other, Reeve had forgotten himself in the madness of it all.

So he found a new purpose-saving the world. Not in the way the others did, with fighting and tears, grief and anger driving them forward. Pushing themselves to the point of no return. No, Reeve found that reconstruction of their world, without the arrogance of ShinRa, was a task he was ready to take on.

Reeve would save this planet with restoration, with reconstructing what was lost, and building a better future from it.


End file.
